The acts were short and scandalous – radical praxis meets music hall. The Readers Wifes’ eclectic playlist ranged from X-Ray Spex to Abba. Less consumerist-aspirational gay, more sarky art-school queer, the crowd was thoughtful, bolshie and (mostly) kind. Rather than gym culture, dance music, strippers and pills, Duckie melded the boozy bonhomie of gay indie-pop night Popstarz with the live-art vibe of the ICA, creating what it called “homosexual honky-tonk”.
And, like many other misfits, weirdos and queers, I felt right at home.Īll this went against the grain of the 90s gay scene. On stage, “anti-drag” act the Divine David castigated liberal complacency. On the speakers were David Bowie, Kate Bush and the Smiths. It was liberating and intoxicating but, as a speccy, self-conscious type more into my parents’ 1960s LPs than house or techno, I didn’t really feel at home. As a gay teenage Londoner in the mid-90s, the first club I went to was Heaven, which felt somehow compulsory.
